Every year, The Dispatch publishes a series on how wonderful
life is in South County. It is a good series, showcasing some of
the people who contribute so hugely to the sense of community we
enjoy here. The only thing I do not like about the series is the
title: Pride.
Every year, The Dispatch publishes a series on how wonderful life is in South County. It is a good series, showcasing some of the people who contribute so hugely to the sense of community we enjoy here. The only thing I do not like about the series is the title: Pride.
Pride. I wince, unable to overcome my heritage of five thousand years of Judeo-Christian-Western civilization: pride is a sin, akin to arrogance, conceit, self-righteousness. Celebrate pride?
This year’s subtitle, Profiles in Courage, is much better. When I read the first issue in the series, featuring backyard barbecuers, real estate agents, South County Housing, and the Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center, I was a bit bemused: barbecuing, a profile in courage?
Then I thought, why not? Ordinary Americans, living ordinary American lives: dreaming dreams, taking risks. Sure, that is courage. Besides, one never knows about the secret, everyday heroism of ordinary Americans.
I have just finished reading a book about such an American. When George Tsegeletos was a senior in high school in Northern California, he and his buddies found a real sweet deal. The Marines would let them sign up as reservists. They would train one day a week, and get two weeks of training at a camp the next summer. “To top it off, they were going to pay us a small stipend every month for this recreation! Not bad. …”
The only catch was that the year was 1950. While George and his friends were at summer training at Camp Pendleton, hostilities broke out with Korea. By October, they were on their way to “Korea? Where is Korea?”
The book, “As I Recall,” is a series of vignettes, almost flashbacks, based on those searing white-hot moments and days that burn themselves into one’s memory: sea-sickness on the Trans-Pacific voyage, shore leave in exotic Japan, homesickness, sub-zero temperatures, fighting, food, friends, letters home, the Battle of Chosin Reservoir.
I had never heard of Chosin Reservoir before I heard of Tsegeletos’s part in it. My husband, who has a passion for military history, had.
“Chosin Reservoir? He was at Chosin? And lived through it? That place was a bloodbath!”
In his introduction, Cpl. Tsegeletos refers to the Korean War by its nickname: The Forgotten War. An apt name, I think; we studied Korea only once in my 17 years of schooling, and then briefly: as an aspect of the Cold War, an interlude between World War II and Vietnam.
I did a little better than that, homeschooling, when my kids and I studied American history the first time around. I expect to do even better the next time, with Anne, with the first-person account, “As I Recall,” to draw on.
We make use of several different genres in our study of history. We read textbooks for sequence and major events and dates. We read historical fiction for flavor and emotional impact and emotion. We read period literature to immerse ourselves in the minds of the people. And we read primary sources – diaries, letters, first person accounts – to fill in the chinks with reality.
For example, last time we studied the Civil War, we read from a text. We read historical fiction: “Caddie Woodlawn” and “Rifles for Watie,” among others. We read period literature: “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Huckleberry Finn.” And we read first person accounts: “The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass” and “The Diaries of Elisha Hunt Rhodes.”
Elisha Rhodes’s diaries gave us the best glimpse of battle, advancement, boredom, and daily life in a Union regiment, all in the authentic language and style of a 20-year-old from New England circa 1865.
George Tsegeletos gives us a glimpse of the same things, in the authentic language and style of a teenager from California, circa 1950.
It was the strangest feeling, both humbling and proud, to realize while reading the book, that I had known an American war hero for my entire life, and never known that he had two Purple Hearts. I am very proud of my uncle, George H. Tsegeletos. Almost sinfully so.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and a former engineer. Her column is published in The Dispatch every Friday.
